“The absence of environmental and social metrics in most connectivity indices is surprising, not to say shocking,” the report says.

For example, indices often use figures on the number of migrants in a given country, under the assumption that countries that welcome more migrants are better connected.

But nations such as Qatar or Saudi Arabia have a high share of migrants in their population “because they exploit cheap labour”, says Thierry Schwarz, who coauthored the chapter. “Is it a sign of good connectivity? Of course not,” says Schwarz, a former director of ASEF’s political and economic department.

“The absence of environmental and social metrics in most connectivity indices is surprising, not to say shocking.”

Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) report

To account for the damage high connectivity can cause, Schwarz and his chapter coauthor Yvonne Guo, a public policy researcher at the National University of Singapore, propose an alternative measure: the Sustainable Connectivity Index (SCI).

This index would give positive marks to connectivity elements that are neutral or beneficial to other countries, and remove marks for harmful aspects. It would also include and give equal weight to economic, social and environmental criteria.

Developing countries would fare better in the long term in a ranking based on this proposed index, predicts Schwarz.

Globalisation researcher Lukas Figge, who has worked on MGI at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, agrees that existing indices do not account for the damage connectivity causes. But he is “a bit sceptical” about the proposed SCI.

The decisions to ascribe positive or negative scores to each criterion would involve underlying value judgements that would reflect different cultural perspectives, Figge says. “From a scientific perspective, this would be difficult to defend,” he says.